Story - June 3, 2021 - After hearing the story of a Salvadoran immigrant and her plight to leave her home country, bishops from the U.S., Central America and Mexico meeting in Mundelein June 2 turned to a camera facing a woman identified as Maria Antonia. Even though she was who thousands of miles away, in Irving, Texas, they gave her…

Story - June 1, 2021 - After the 2016 flood, Denise Brown donated time and money to the recovery effort. Five years later — on the heels of a storm that doused the capital region in 14 inches of rain, flooding her out of house and home — the 39-year-old Jefferson Terrace resident is the one who needs help. And on…

Story - May 19, 2021 - It is a time of hope. And few people need hope more than the poverty-stricken residents of Portsmouth, Ohio, located in Scioto County— the second poorest county in the state. With a median household income of $28,840, Portsmouth bears the burden of a 37% poverty rate. Nestled in green hills, this rural town across the…

Story - May 10, 2021 - The announcement that the Biden administration was raising the limit of annual refugee admissions from 15,000 to 62,500 was cause for celebration at a Georgetown University online discussion of migrant issues May 4. And Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Texas, said more visibility would help…

Story - May 10, 2021 - The work of Georgetown University and the Jesuits in reckoning with the history of owning and selling enslaved people may hold lessons for the rest of the Catholic Church and American society, said several panelists at an April 29 discussion at the university. Joseph M. Stewart, the acting president of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation…

Story - April 29, 2021 - Marie and Bob worked all their lives to become homeowners. They lived comfortably on their two stable incomes. But six years ago, their hard-earned American Dream started to unravel before their eyes. They found out they had been victims of predatory lending, and they were forced to foreclose, declare bankruptcy, and move out of their…

Story - April 8, 2021 - As the U.S. took in almost 19,000 migrant children, labeled “unaccompanied minors,” in March, faith-based organizations such as Catholic Charities throughout the U.S. have been doing their part to help. In Texas, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio set up over 2,000 cots for their guests at the Freeman Coliseum to “welcome and…

Story - March 25, 2021 - Nurses and volunteers from the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey recently stopped by Catholic Charities, Diocese of Trenton’s Linkages program in Tinton Falls, N.J., to administer COVID-19 vaccines to the families, staff and volunteers there, as well as other members of the community. Linkages is transitional housing for families and individuals exiting homelessness in…

Story - March 23, 2021 - As federal officials announced that a downtown Dallas facility had been chosen to house up to 3,000 migrant teenagers starting the week of March 15, the Catholic faithful in the Diocese of Dallas sprang into action to help. The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center opened to house unaccompanied migrant teens in U.S. custody, with the…

Story - March 15, 2021 - The American Rescue Plan is “an extraordinarily practical way to help the American people, New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said in a statement March 11, the same day President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package into law. “People have the right to expect that their money, in the form of tax…

Story - March 4, 2021 - Injured and denied disability benefits, this former goldmine worker spent five years homeless in Calexico. The only homeless shelter in the area that helped him get back on his feet. “There’s a lot of gold back in those hills,” says Robert, a native of Westmorland, California, in the Imperial Valley. In 1990, a few years…

Story - February 23, 2021 - The Burton family from Lake Charles, Louisiana, were on the way home from a New Mexico skiing vacation when the worst winter storm in recent Texas history brought the state to a perpetual halt. They kept track of the worst-hit regions and avoided Amarillo and Austin. Then Feb. 17, as many Texans huddled in their…